


To Do the Work and Let It Go

by HSavinien



Category: due South
Genre: Female Character of Color, Gen, Police, Stress Relief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-11
Updated: 2014-03-11
Packaged: 2018-01-15 08:27:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1298146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HSavinien/pseuds/HSavinien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elaine comes home from work.</p>
<p>ds_snippets prompt: <br/>"To bear and not to own;<br/>to act and not lay claim;<br/>to do the work and let it go."<br/>--Tao Te Ching, in translation by Ursula K Le Guin</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Do the Work and Let It Go

Officer Besbriss took off her hat and hung it up next to her coat.  She kicked off her shoes toward the mat beside the door, missed a little, and didn't care.  Unslinging her holster, she checked her gun, and slid the whole thing into the safe with her star and cuffs.  
  
Elaine pulled her bobby pins out, losing a few behind the table as she dumped them in the dish on top, and combed her fingers through her hair, loosing a cloud of staticky curls and easing the pull on her scalp.  She was exhausted; worn from a week of other people's pain, fear, and anger.  
  
Elaine was Officer Besbriss outside the walls of her apartment in her blue cloth armor, behind a brass and nickel shield - a voice, a hand, a pair of feet for the law.  For everyone's hurts and pettiness, sorrows and irritation, she bore up and did the things that kept the world turning as well as it could, doing her best to judge whether a sharp word or a kind one would best serve.  
  
Inside, she was Elaine, with sore feet and a crick in her neck and three hours worth of paperwork to ignore 'til tomorrow and Chinese takeout in the fridge from two nights ago that was probably still good.  She stuck a tape in the VCR and curled up on the couch with shitty lo mein and _The Addams Family_ because weird comedy and a screwy but loving family were what she needed.  Right before the family reunion scene, she paused it, dumped the lo mein carton in the garbage and the fork in the sink next to this morning's cereal bowl and pulled the nearly empty carton of mint fudge ice cream out of the freezer.  Time to let everything go.


End file.
